SAPT Technique Tip: Row Like A Boss

The row is one of the basic human movements that should be included in all training programs. I would even go so far as to say it’s essential yet very much ignored. It’s also probably one of the most butchered movements, the poor thing.

Everyone likes to work the “mirror muscles” (the front side) and we tend to drift away from training the backside as fervently as we do the front, mostly because usually those exercises are harder so, naturally, we don’t like to do them.

However, rowing creates a powerful upper back that a) makes you stronger in general, all the power comes from the back of you, b) prevents shoulder injuries by stabilizing the shoulder blade and maintaining a healthy scapulohumeral rhythm (fancy way of saying how your shoulder blade moves on your rib cage in conjunction with your arm bone), and c) provides a solid foundation from which you can bench more weight. Oh, what was that? A strong back means a stronger bench?

With all that in mind, here’s a video outlining some of the most common row technique flaws that plague weight rooms everywhere.

Main points:

Don’t squinch your shoulders up towards your ears.

Don’t crank your shoulder blade down into your back pocket.

Both those movement patterns only feed into dysfunction: shoulder impingement and lower back hyperextension/back pain, respectively.

We want to see scapular retraction, as if you’re pinching a pencil between your shoulder blades as you row.

Even if you have great retraction, if you don’t allow your scapulae to glide forward as you extend your arm, it becomes a horizontal bicep curl and doesn’t really help improve your back muscles’ strength.

A Sport Specific Speed and Agility Drill: Barrel Roll to Sprint to Backpedal

Wednesday's post skimmed the surface with speed training- acceleration and deceleration- and offered a pretty great drill (in my humble opinion at least) to teach those two aspects of speed work concomitantly. 

I have yet another fantastic drill to work on speed/agility. This one is also incorporates acceleration and deceleration, but throws in the challenge of getting up off the floor directly into the sprint. Have a look-see before we break it down:

The athlete starts in a plank position, rolls over (right or left), gets up, sprints forward, slows down, and changes direction into a backpedal.

This particular athlete plays volleyball so this drill is perfect for volleyball players who often dive on the court (on the ground) and then immediately have to be up at the net (sprint forward) and eventually have to transition to her/his original spot on the court once the ball is returned from the opposing team (backpedal).

That said, this drill can really apply to any athlete since many athletes find themselves on the ground at one point or another and need to return to play as quickly as possible. 

I already spoke on the benefits of training the acceleration/deceleration aspect in the last post, so I won't belabor those points. Two specific things about this drill that I really, really like: 

1. The athlete has to learn how to re-orient his/herself. The barrel roll challenges the vestibular system (balance) by scrambling the inner ear and eyes a bit so the athlete has to learn how to figure out where they are in space, quickly, before they can get up again. A lot of people neglect to train or at least challenge the vestibular system so athletes can get disoriented on the field/court and thus lose valuable seconds within a play. You can "strengthen" the vestibular system by throwing in drills that change the athlete's field of vision, the physical position of the head/body, or requiring them to change directions rapidly. 

2. Not only does the athlete have to figure out where the body is in space, but now they have to get up off the ground. The transition from ground to standing is another place where seconds are wasted (and that can mean the difference between winning or losing...) so the faster an athlete can get up and back in the game, the better. Drills like this isolate that transition a bit so the athlete can learn how to do so most efficiently. 

This is a more slightly more advanced drill. Before giving this to an athlete, I would want to ensure she/he is able to change directions well and so drills that only focus on that are ideal to start, like the drill in the other post. Once they look pretty good there, we can throw in drills like this that add extra challenges that are a bit more sport-specific, or as I say, "life-specific."

Speed Training: Acceleration and Deceleration

“Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its state of motion (this includes changes to its speed, direction or state of rest). It is the tendency of objects to keep moving in a straight line at constant velocity.”

This applies to athletes 100%. The human body will keep moving in a certain direction until a force acts upon it to slow it down or change the direction. Typically, this is the person's muscles, ligaments, tendons, and bones (and occasionally the opposing team...). Guess what? Weak muscles and ligaments do a poor job of changing a body's inertia; strong ones, however, are pretty darn good at it. 

In addition to making people stronger and more awesome, we work on speed** and change of direction with our athletes. Below is a drill that teaches acceleration, deceleration, and changing direction quickly.

Most parents want their kids to get faster, frankly, most kids want to run faster which is why they come to us. However, the other side of the commonly thought of "speed work" is being able to decelerate safely and then redirect force in a different direction (forward, backward, or sideways relative to the original direction). Most non-contact injuries happen because the brain has decided to change directions but the body is not prepared to do so. For example, ACL tears frequently happen when an athlete tries to change directions but they are unable to decelerate properly before trying to do so. It was really hard to find a video of an ACL tear (non-contact), the best I could find was this compilation. See the athletes at markers :11 (basketball), :29 (baseball), 1:05 (tennis), and 1:20 (football). 

So, since decelerating is just as important as accelerating we do drill such as this one:

And from the side:

This is a simpler drill since the only movement is linear (forward/backward), no lateral/sideways motion, since I want him to learn how to slow his body down safely and then change direction.

The progression to this drill would be to adding some sort of lateral movement from which the athlete either has to slow down from or change direction into. 

Again, speed training should encompass both acceleration and deceleration; failing to train and practice the deceleration component sets up athletes for injuries during actual sport practices and games.

This is a really important point, don't skip it:

*"Speed" often improves, almost exclusively at first, by getting an athlete stronger (with nary a "speed" drill in sight) because stronger athletes can a) apply more force to the ground and thus propelling themselves further with each step and b) can slow themselves down more quickly in order to change directions. Strength training also eliminates "power leaks" i.e. a weak and noodle-y core is just going to flop around with lots of wasted motion instead of translating force. Honestly, 99% of "slow" kids are actually just weak. Once an athlete has an actual strength base, then we can start working on speed and change of direction drills.

Good Reads for the Weekend-- Protein, Nutrition Myths, and the Truth about Cleanses

Here are a couple of good reads for the long weekend ahead.

I’m sure there will be some people will have a cookout or friend-gathering where food is involved. Don’t be afraid to eat an extra helping of meat. Precision Nutrition has a great article about what eating “high-protein” actually means. If you’ve heard any of the dire warnings of kidney or bone damage due to protein intakes, you need to read this, like, now.

Speaking of busting myths, Susan Kleiner at Girls Gone Strong has a great article about three nutritional myths that can hinder athletic performance and development. It’s a must read for any ardent trainee or competitive athlete.

The marketing hype around “cleanses” is just reeeedikulous. Therefore any article that digs under the surface of the thin layer of hype and exposes the truth of cleanses, makes me happy. Brandon Morrison from Lift Big, Eat Big filled that bill.

And lastly, here’s an article I wrote over two years ago where I reviewed the sensational “Forks Over Knives” documentary; really it was urging all of us to think more critically when it comes to nutritional information- especially when that information is using fear tactics.

That should tide you over for the long weekend. Happy Labor Day!

Common Deadlift Mistake: Squatting the Weight

The deadlift is one of those exercises that seems so simple, yet there are a lot of things that can go awry and one winds up with an injury or, at best, a wasted set.

One of the more common mishaps is turning the deadlift into a squat instead of performing a hinge pattern.

First, what is the difference between a squat and a hinge?

Dan John’s definition will do nicely:

Squat- maximal hip bend, maximal knee bend

Squat...

Deadlift- maximal hip bend, minimal knee bend

Hinge.

Why do we want to hinge instead of squat?

Well, for starters, that’s what the squat is for…

Seriously, squatting the weight during a deadlift does several things:

Takes the emphasis off the hamstrings and glutes. The quads do pitch in a bit during a deadlift, more so in a trap bar deadlift, but really, the bulk of the work should be performed by the hamstrings and glutes. This is not good because...

Decreasing the power of the hams and glutes typically means you’re leaning forward a bit too much on your toes and your torso is too upright relative to the bar. It’s now more likely that the lower back is going to jump in there and then you’re in a whole mess of trouble because...

Of the torso angle, you have a decreased ability to brace well and stabilize the spine and we all know that causes...

A sore back and not a whole lot of benefit for the effort exerted and finally...

It’s awkward- the bar bangs into the knees on the way up and down and it feels like wearing your shoes on the wrong feet.

Let’s take a gander at what the difference looks like:

Note-

This athlete’s torso is really long for his body, so he will look a little more squatty compared to a longer-legged individual.

Notice the position of the shoulder blades, they are behind the bar in the first example when he squats it, and then directly over the top when he gets into a better hinge pattern. This is a key indicator of squatting vs hinging in a deadlift. You WANT the shoulder blades directly over the bar as that’s the most mechanically advantageous position.

Now we know the difference between the two; film your next deadlift set and do a form check on yourself. If you want to know a related deadlift mistake, the hips popping up too much, you can watch THIS video. 

The Importance of Single-Leg Work: Do Your Lunges!

Lunges are hard. Step ups make people groan and roll their eyes.. and don't even get me started on things like the Bulgarian split squat...

Please...no...anything but that...

I've seen, literally, guys who can squat and deadlift four to five hundred pounds but fall over when they try to do a lunge with 40lbs. That type of discrepancy is a big red flag that there are some lagging muscle groups. 

Despite most people's feelings of utter loathing towards single-leg work, it's uber important to regularly perform such things for the following reasons:

Main points of the video:

1. Even out imbalances between sides (from head to toes, quite literally).

2. Challenge and strengthen the smaller stabilizers muscles of the foot, ankle, hip, and core. The bigger muscles often compensate for these guys so it's for them to get lazy.

3. Prepare you to perform normal human movement like, running, jumping, dashing side to side as your sprint down the field or racing your kids upstairs, you know, normal things. 

Personally, I've stepped away from squatting and/or deadlifting for a couple weeks to work on single-leg work and when I came back to the bilateral movements, I felt much more solid and tighter- probably because I was able to strengthen my stabilizers and reduced any overcompensation that was happening on one side to make up for the other.

Now you don't have to drop squats or deadlifts, but putting a little more emphasis (or any emphasis at all) on your single-leg work will prove to be a useful, if not DOMS-inducing, addition to your training.